There have been several comments recently about what we are doing as far as Santa goes, so I figured I’d just write a post about Jolly Ol St Nick.

Santa is fun and I won’t take fun away from my girls, but I also won’t lead them to believe something that isn’t true.

Santa is someone the girls will go see every year. They will know the story of Santa. The story of the legend Ol St Nick and the magical story of Santa delivering presents to all the girls and boys on Christmas Eve.

Just like any other fairy tale, that magical story will be just that: a fairy tale. It won’t be something that we will present to our girls as truth. We won’t lead Little Bug to believe Santa dropped off a present for her and Sweet Pea on his run around the whole entire world on Christmas Eve.

If Little Bug were to pretend that one of her presents “came from Santa”, so be it. She does have a vivid imagination! She pretend-plays all day long, talking to her “Disney friends” and making up stories of what they are doing and saying.

I don’t buy into the theory that by teaching your child to believe in Santa you are putting doubt into their hearts about whether God is real or not. It really just boils down to the fact that we, as parents, just can’t see ourselves teaching our children that Santa is actually going to come down the chimney (that we don’t have!) and drop off presents to them in the middle of the night!

We also have a problem with using Santa to get our girls to behave in the month of December. We want them to behave and obey their parents and other authorities because that is what the Word of God has instructed them to do and they desire to please the Lord and their parents. Not just so they can get something other than coal under the tree on Christmas morning. Even if we did “do Santa” I know we’d not emphasize the part of being good so Santa will bring you something nice.

Do I feel like my girls are missing out on something magical about childhood?

Well, my parents didn’t do Santa with me or my brother and we had one of the best childhoods imaginable.

I guess that all goes back to what I said above. If Little Bug wants to pretend one of her presents is from Santa, I will play along with her, just like I play “tea party” with her or anything else she comes up with that she wants to play.

And no matter what we do with our girls at Christmastime we desire to teach them the true meaning of Christmas: celebrating the birth of Jesus Christ!

- Elaine